Hell's Kitchen
by holanio
Summary: She couldn't handle it... Sora's death was too much and not even the help of Daichi or Akane could change her suffering. Determined to hold onto the string of fate, she'll fall into death to get him back.
1. Resolve

Hell's Kitchen

**Disclaimer: I don't **_**really**_** like the Sora&Najika pairing, but the storyline would make more sense. There is also no way that any of this is the official business, so please... don't flame on the process of this story. You **_**can**_** flame on my horrible grammar conventions though. I just keep finding more things to disclaim about... copyright not intended... and stuff.**

_Resolve_

Dark music played as the few people clad in black mourned for their lost friend. Most others though, despised this person and did not even bother to come to the funeral. There was a boy and there was a girl, both teenagers and both were crying. Another was an old lady along with some children sobbing intensely. "Najika!" one of the kids broke down. The old lady, still in tears, hugged the child, trying to comfort him in the process.

"Waaah!" the teenage girl cried, "Najika why? Why did you an-and Sora have to die?" She kept trying to wipe her face, but the tears kept flowing. "Tell me why damn you!" She pounded the boy next to her in her depression.

He grabbed her arm to stop her, "Akane, control yourself! I-I mean you need to calm down, at least in front of the little kids!"

"Daichi, you can't tell me to calm down after _both_ of them died!" she yelled.

"Yes I can! I'm doing it right now. Akane, for Najika and Sora's sake you have to... to..." he struggled to find words because he was suffering the loss of both his older brother and the person he loved the most.

She held both of his arms and looked him in the eyes, "Listen to me now. You can't tell me to calm down if you're not over their deaths either," she explained.

"But-" he started. Then a hand came upon his shoulder in comfort.

"Daichi-san, we understand..." the old lady smiled softly.

He only took a glance at her expression to break down again, "I'm... sorry I couldn't do anything to change her Hagio..."

"It's not your fault," she replied gently, "...no one should be at fault. So shall we get going now? Any longer I think we'll all die from loss of salt and water." She encouraged everyone to get up and stop crying. Hagio led the way as she stopped midway and turned to face the grave.

Everyone took one last glance at the tombstone, there lay: Kazami Najika.

* * *

In another place, a young man was arguing with a powerful looking deity. "I'll go to hell, but you can't send her down there! I can't let anything happen to her... Not after what I've done to everyone else."

The deity responded, "You do know, that signing a deal with the devil is never going to be guaranteed."

"I know, but I have to at least try and repent for my sins!" he tried to pursuade.

"Ha! Repent for your sins? It's much too late for something as insolent as that. If you're going to hell you need to get rid of your changing emotions or else it's not going to be very fun... This is your last chance, choose your path or I'll choose for you," it laughed.

The boy looked down and then looked towards the girl unconscious on one of the floating devices in line with thousands of other souls. "Deal."

It grinned and locked the path to the heavenly staircase while opening the gates to a fiery punishment. "You've sealed your fate naive one. Now go, or you'll suffer something much worse than hell."

"Na-Najika... I'm sorry, but I have to do this for your well being. It's my fault that I lied to you anyways, and so I guess I deserve this for the most part," he reconciled walking down towards the depths of hell.

After closing the doorway, the girl woke up immediately. Her orange hair grew longer than before she had died. "What? Where am I?"

An angel aproached her, "You've been saved by grace, and here is where you'll decide whether or not you go to hell or heaven!" It showed Najika the way towards the large desk and she was in front of two judges. One looked more menacing than the other; the other looked very gentle and kind.

The nicer looking judge smiled at her, "And you are Kazami Najika?"

"I am," she answered, still confused as to where she was.

"Choose which path you believe you should go through," the other judge ordered.

A bit shocked by the sudden comment Najika asked, "What?"

The angel, understanding her confusion replied instead, "Kazami-san, you're in the judgment room. This is where you go after you die on Earth. You have to choose whether or not you think you should go to heaven or hell. The judge in the white is whom we nicknamed Left and the judge in the black is whom we nicknamed Right."

"I see..." she contemplated.

Impatient, Right's voice boomed, "Choose!"

Left laughed, "It doesn't matter, she's going to go to heaven anyways and she's most likely going to choose heaven anyways."

"That's her choice, we can still change the decision," Right said.

"Hey, what do you mean by me going to heaven anyways?" she asked curiously.

Some random person behind her was getting impatient and yelled, "A boy before you sold his soul to the devil to make sure you get up there hun!"

"A boy? Soul? De... vil..." and it all came to her, Sora and her had died and they were in the judgment room. While she was still unconscious, he had sealed his soul's fate... because of her. "I... I can't allow this!" she exclaimed, "You have to put him back in heaven! he doesn't deserve to go to hell! I do!"

Left responded, "He signed a deal with the devil, the worst possible sin you could make. Besides, he _lied_ to you and gave you false hopes, he killed your dreams by dying. Thus, causing you to die and made his friends and family greive over him."

Najika stopped listening after lied, "_Lied_ to me? If that's all he did to deserve going to hell... then I'd be a fool to accept the other end of the bargain from a demon like you! If he died because of a lie that made me happy, then I should just go straight to hell."

"Left, you are a disappointment giving away your identity like that," Right said sternly. Left, still a little shocked that she found out.

"Whatever, another resident for hell, that's fine for me. Looks like Right lost another angel, boo hoo," it said sarcastically. Looking towards Najika with a smirk on it's face, it said, "You've sealed your own fate kid, be prepared for the worst... because if you can't stand the heat, you should just burn with everyone else who tried cooking in our kitchen." Soon after, Left raised his devil trident and closed the pathway to heaven and opened the pathway to hell. "Go."

"Sora... I'll get you back, even if it takes everything I know! At least there's one thing in this abysmal I can use... and that's the fire," Najika declared boldly, "and that's a promise I _will_ keep."

Right watched her walk down the stairs and said to himself, "I don't know if He would say whether or not this was right at all... Falling so much in love that you would be willing to follow them down to hell. I'll... keep a watch on this girl and that boy."

Once Left closed the gates, he laughed maniacally while Right was smirking as well. "What are you laughing at?" it asked in an annoyed tone.

"You forgot to take her emotions away," Right chuckled.

"Oh shit!" Just when Left was about to summon Najika again, another soul appeared in front of them.

"It's too late, she's out of your hand. Let's work, still have an eternity before retirement comes into view," Right said calmly.

Shifting its eyes, Left replied disdainfully, "You said that last eternity, and it's not helping you know." The deity turned towards the approaching soul, "How are you today?"

* * *

Meanwhile, at the academy... "This is our new student who will be in the Special Class, Mizuno Seiya. He will be the spokesperson for our new cooking school," the director introduced to all the special class students.

Everyone gasped at the appearance of him. Daichi and Akane choked a little when they saw him. In unison, they whispered to each other, "S-Sora?"

Akane struggled a bit in speech, "It can't be... h-he died already." With that said, her eyes became swollen again and she cried. Other people were completely awekstruck and some burst into tears as well.

Daichi on the otherhand already knew who this person was and regained his composure, "So once again, this... is Mizuno Seiya."

The new student grunted at the class, "I'm sick of seeing people cry because they see _me_. Especially when their response is always about this 'Sora' kid. Do I really look like him?"

Akane stood from her chair, angered by him, "Don't talk like that about Sora! He was a good person, and you could _never_ compare to him!"

"Tch. I can bet you a creme brulee that he can't even cook, so there's no point in comparing _him_ with _me_," Mizuno snorted.

The director was getting impatient, as well as annoyed and ended it before the argument got out of hands, "Stop. Now go to your seats and resume working." He left the room in distress and the rest of the day was filled with angst, grief and awkwardness.

* * *

When she entered hell, it wasn't anything she had really expected. There were little sparks of flames everywhere and she felt the heat even though her body was supposedly dead. Occasionally, she saw some people walking around, but they seemed uncaring with no emotions. "Excuse me," she tried as one person walked by. It looked as if no one had felt the heat other than her; it was a weird experience, but she was in hell after all. She looked glum; what was she expecting in this place? A warm welcome hand that will greet her and take her to her new torture quarters?

And suddenly, that's what she got. "You are Kazami Najika, correct?"

Najika spun around and saw her greeter, "I am."

"Well that's good because I have to show you around this place," the person said with no expression. They led her around and she caught sight of someone she thought she knew.

"Sora?" she gasped. Then she broke away from her guide and ran over to the boy who had his mouth covered with bandages. She knelt down beside him and cried, "Sora? Is that you? It is, isn't it? I know it's you Sora..." She held him tightly, but the boy seemed entirely surprised.

"Huh? What are you doing to me?" he asked warily.

"I'm hugging you," she replied automatically.

He raised one of his eyebrows in question, "There's no point in it."

"Sora why? You do remember me right?"

"Of course, you're Kazami Najika. I gave up my spot in heaven to make sure you went up there."

"That's right, but I'm taking you back up there! If anyone deserved to go to hell it should be me! It was all my fault and... besides, without you I'd be lost..."

"You should've kept your end of the bargain, and now that you're down here. What am I supposed to do if I gave up my freedom for nothing?" Sora retorted bitterly.

Her eyes were swollen, she'd finish crying, but this was too sad for her. "...I'm... you... I'm going to get the Sora I know back into heaven if it's the last thing I do in this afterlife!" She gripped his hands tightly and pledged, "If there's anything I can do Sora... just say the word and I'll do it."

Sora thought about it; since his emotions were taken away, he didn't really have anything to go by. "I want some pancakes, I've been itching for some pancakes ever since I got here."

"Done," she said. Najika stood up and ran after her guide again. "Take me to your kitchen," she ordered. A determined girl meant that she was willing to be the boss in these situations. The guide shook their head. "What? Why not?" she complained.

"We don't _have_ a kitchen," the guide admitted, "because it was never necessary."

She pouted, "This might be a problem..."

**Typer's Note -**  
I couldn't handle it anymore! There were only ONE other KP FF on FF? D:  
that's too depressing... here's a second one! You guys need to bust them out, I love this manga...  
I hope you enjoy it and it's not too... I dunno... bad. I'll continue it, but I don't know how long it will take me to update. So no promises!


	2. Learning

Hell's Kitchen

**Disclaimer: The content that goes here is basically the disclaimer from the first chapter of this FF.**

_Learning_

She sat on one of the randomly available chairs and pondered her situation, "I'm in hell, Sora lost his emotions and there are no tools for me to use here..."

Sora played around with a pencil and spun it around for fun. When he was alive, he would be busy all the time. Now his punishment was eternal boredom; the irony of it all. "And I thought I was going to get a pancake," he sighed heavily.

Getting upset with the boy she doesn't even know anymore, Najika pounded his desk, "Stop it! I don't like it when you're like this. Can't you remember anything else or just get your mind off pancakes for a moment?"

"You're the one who asked if I wanted to eat something," he remarked monotonously.

"Grr..." Najika was stressing out and try to get ahold of herself. She clutched her hands together and pressed her head in towards it to think. "I need... heat... since I don't think there's any actualy refridgeration in hell. When can I get heat?"

"You _are_ in hell you know?" Sora interrupted.

For a few seconds she processed the words in her head and had a sudden brain spark, "That's right! This whole place is hoooot. I can just use this place as my gigantic kitchen!"

"Smart... I wish it'd cool down though."

The tour guide sat down with them and interjected, "It's not supposed to be hot in hell."

"It's not?" Najika asked, "Then why am I sweating? Sora's sweating too..."

"You two aren't supposed to be here. If you were destined for this place, then you'd be temperaturely fit."

Thinking some more, Najika came up with another problem, "Is the food temperaturely fit here as well or will it cook like... earth standards normal?"

They let the question sink in before answer Najika's question and answered, "If you can find some ingrediants in the first place, then they should be earth standardly normal. The exception is if you don't recognize the food. If that's the case, then it's probably a hell only type of ingrediant and requires a lower temperature to cook."

"Lower temperature?" Sora and Najika inquired together.

"Yes, lower temperature. It's kind of flipped in this place. Here, the process is somewhat opposite than what you would know from earth and above to heaven. Lower temperature will heat things up, and thus, higher temperature will cool things down. Since the food here is always starts out hot, it seems cooked to us when it is cold," they explained.

In awe Najika said, "You sure know a lot about how earth, heaven and hell works."

A bit surprised by the comment, the tour guide choked on the air, "Kmph. Well, let's just say I've been here long enough to figure things out. I'm one of the luckier residents in hell... if that's possible. But I'm still just as bad as anyone in this cursed place."

"I'd go crazy if I stayed here for as long as you did," Sora commented.

With a slight smirk, they continued, "... but after a while, you get used to it and it doesn't seem _so_ bad anymore."

"We're getting offtrack!" Najika shouted, "I need to cook something for Sora! If I do that, he might remember the life before death and he'll be happier and... he'll escape this place. Where is the food in this place?"

"Sorry honey, you were very lucky to be able to be in Sora's presence. Probably because you two are in the same situation, but you _are_ in hell now. In this place, you don't get want you want; that's just how it works."

Sudden realization came to Najika when she heard those words. "I... almost forgot where exactly I was..."

"When you're in this place, you're here because you have done something wrong, something so terribly wrong. You are punished as a result; usually, to the point where you have been restricted from the thing you want or love the most. And in order to make the restriction go away; you have to learn how to _not_ want. I'm not saying that you have to change religion or anything, but you have to trick the system. That's the only way you can get past it; by lying."

Even though Sora was emotionless; he was still the smart student body president he used to be. "Hell is built upon layers and layers of misconceptions, cheats and punishment. Bo-ring. Then again; if you know this, then I'm guessing you've tricked the system as well."

"Correct. That's why I'm able to learn so many things about these worlds, and you two have plenty to learn and plenty of time," the tour guide finished.

Najika pushed her chair away and glared at the table and slowly turned it to the tour guide, "Now _tell_ me where the food is."

* * *

"Who's going to be the student body president now?" one student whispered to another.

"I'm not sure... but if there was going to be a candidate for one; shouldn't the second Kitazawa brother take over?" the boy replied.

"Yeah, I totally agree."

Overhearing their conversation, Daichi walked away in the opposite direction. Akane soon ran up to him in distress, "Daichi! There's a fight going on between some of the lower and upper classes. You have to do something about it!"

"Lead the way," he commanded and Akane did so.

The two arrived to see a two on five fight; lower classmen and upper classmen respectively. They were throwing punches at each other with the occasionally drop kicks and etc. Akane turned her head to see someone on the ground unconcious and pointed them out to Daichi. Furious, he yelled at the group of kids fighting, "Stop it _now_!" He rolled up his sleeves and showcased his fist while Akane rushed to the injured student's aid. "Now what the hell is going on here?"

* * *

Eyes open wide, Sora and the tour guide were appalled to see Najika's personality changing. "Were you always like this?" Sora asked.

"Umm... I don't think so," Najika replied eerily.

Crossing their arms, the tour guide responded to the predicament, "Hell tends to do that when you have a strong desire. You suddenly have things that you want or need to do. And in this accursed place, that desire is only deepened... ten folds or so. Six hundred and sixty-six if you want to be unlucky."

Najika groaned, hell was getting to be an annoying place, even for her. "Uggh... okay then. Just please, tell me where I can find ingredients for anything. Blueberry pancakes would be the best though."

"Let me think... blueberries..." they pondered.

"While we're at this question business," Sora interrupted, "Do you have a _name_? I really am too lazy to call you tour guide or you all the time. It's truthfully, extremely boring. Plus, I'm not stupid or anything, but are you ever a guy or a girl?"

"Good question," they remarked, "For now, let's say I am... female. So you may call me..."

"Lavender," Najika said on an impulse. "No, I'm sorry! That, no I really am sorry!" she immediately apologized.

"Don't worry. That name is fine; we can go with Lavender," she assured.

Sora sighed, "That's a weird name nevertheless. It will have to do though; better than tour guide at least."

"Enough of that, Najika, you wanted ingredients, yes?"

Back on topic, Najika's eyes shone, "Yes!"

Lavender started walking down a path, "Let us get to it then."

* * *

Afraid of Daichi's presence, one of the students replied with a tembling voice, "These two lower classmen were causing trouble for us. They were not being respectful, and... and... you must know how it is Daichi-san! You're in the same level class as us!"

"That's not true!" the conscious of the two lower classmen yelled.

"How dare you disrespect us?" a girl from the high class scolded.

Furious, Daichi had enough of it, but it seemed like Akane was fed up before even he was. "Shut your traps now!" she ordered. "I don't care what happened between you guys, but someone is hurt right now. If you care to ignore that; then remind me of who you were and what you did so I can make sure to return the favor. I will report all eight of you to the director. All of you are getting at least detentions, and depending the severity of the fight; we can turn this into a suspension as well." She called over Daichi to help her with the injured student, and before they left, she paused and asked them, "Your names please? If you don't tell me; I _will_ find you."

All of them cooperated, threatened by Akane's harsh punishment, and signed their names legibly onto a piece of paper. "Akane..." Daichi said softly, amazed at the situation now, as compared to before.

A student handed her the paper and she glanced at it. "If any of you try to be 'smart' with me, you will regret it; I will promise you that much. But thank you, I will assure that all of you will earn your much deserved suspension," Akane remarked. The two left with the handicapped off to the infirmary. The other students gloomly followed.

"How could you...?" Daichi started.

"Daichi, for Sora's sake, Najika's sake, and especially for your sake. I think for the whole school; I need to ask the director if I can become... the student body president."

**Typer's Note -**  
Ahh... I haven't updated anything is forever.  
I've finished this chapter for a while, but I never remembered to upload it at all.  
Enjoy though!


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